anurans

With yesterday's rain the gray tree frogs and Fowler's toads have been singing. There's more rain coming in tonight!

rain

Lots of rain today, and for the foreseeable future!

passport

By popular demand, I am posting my review of the Western Digital My Passport Essential Portable Hard Drive (250 GB model).

I've had a 60 GB WD Passport for a year or two now. Since I work a lot on two different computers (one with two operating systems) and I'm obsessive about backing everything up, this Passport has been very handy. I use it as the master filesystem and make sure that every file is backed up on at least one computer. I carry it with me wherever I go.

Since I need to reinstall Fedora 11 on both computers (material, I suppose, for another review), I thought it might make it easier to pick up a new external hard drive. The storage technology has improved so rapidly; now I can back several different computer filesystems up on the same USB drive and still have plenty of space for maintaining the master filesystem. That way, if something goes wrong during the installation, I haven't lost anything.

So I cycled up to Staples yesterday and purchased the 250 GB model. The extra gigage is handy, but the annoying thing is that the root directory is called "My Passport". Everything these days is "My, My, My...", "My Documents", "My Pictures", "My Friends". The worst thing about it is that we don't own any of it! It's all proprietary. The space in between "My" and "Passport" makes it more difficult to compose commands in Bash, but perhaps there are work-arounds.

hose

I did hook up a couple of old garden hoses to the rainwater reservoir. There's not a lot of water pressure by the time it gets down to the garden, but it's easier than refilling my little watering can multiple times each morning.

rain

There was a thunderstorm before dawn this morning. Now my rainwater reservoir is almost full to the brim. I'm working on getting the right connection to hook up a hose and water my garden!

harvest

I harvested mustard seeds today. The rabbit harvested lettuce.

cooler

Very pleasant temperatures today after yesterday's brief rain. I saw a harrier soar over the airport yesterday.

heat

My outside thermometer said 108 degrees Fahrenheit today.

Roserock

Back in Oklahoma. It's too hot here!

Indy

I'm in Indianapolis. The cool temperatures are welcome!

plum

Last night I ate a plum from my broken plum tree. I don't know how it gets water up to the leaves and fruit, but it blossoms and produces each year.