before it starts

[mellowtigger]

Tomorrow is my last day off from work, then students move in for the semester start. That means it is time for "hell week" all over again, despite so many mini-hell-weeks since the fall semester started a few months ago. Anyway...

I noticed a few days ago that some (only a few) trees on my block are putting on buds, thanks to the warmest December on record in Minnesota. I didn't take a photo, then last night we got a dusting of snow, so the buds are probably covered up at the moment.

Here, though, is a photo of the fire dragon maiden grass that I bought in spring of 2021. It's finally large enough to notice, although the red has muted since they first died back for the winter season. The tassles, though, do look nice over the snow. Notice that peculiar and scraggly plant in the foreground? That's the tallest bayberry plant I've got, which I planted back in 2016. I've yet to see a single bayberry fruit, though, so I may never get to craft my own bayberry candle for a winter holiday season.

I had my house viewed by a salesperson for the possibility of installing a heat pump from Daikin for ductless a/c and heating. The sales rep said they operate down to -24C/-12F, so there would be days in winter when it wouldn't operate at all, leaving me on the coldest winter days with only electric blankets. I can live with that, if it means being able to turn off my gas heater. Unfortunately, the heat pump costs about $7k per "head" for the main unit, which feeds a pipe that snakes along the outside of the house to a small unit that can heat/cool a single room. I want at least the 2 upstairs bedrooms covered... and preferably the ground floor living room too. So, that's not going to happen this year. Instead, I should focus on saving money to replace the windows upstairs, so any hot/cold air can be contained indoors. I can live easily with a single window a/c unit for another year.

More later on the Steam Deck OLED, Steam Dock, PowerA wired X box controller, and the game Coral Island. That game is clearly a direct rip-off from classic Stardew Valley, which is why I like it so much, I think. Anyway, I splurged on myself for gifts last month, and I've enjoyed it very much this week. Suffice to say for now that the Steam Deck (a Linux pc in game box format) is an engineering marvel.

Comments

[mellowtigger]

And it's still just in "version 1.0" status, and it's already in such enjoyable state. All of the romance stuff is still incomplete, the house upgrade features seem to have issues, and I've made a list of small bugs I've noticed. But it's still an impressive launch.