Ex Bibliotheca

The life and times of Zack Weinberg.

Friday, 20 February 2004

# 9 PM

After 30 days I took the mouse-repelling gadget back, having seen no evidence that the mouse even noticed it was there. With the refund I got myself a heat gun, which I am using to continue the paint-stripping project. It is much easier to get paint off cylindrical table legs with a heat gun than with chemical strippers. They'll still need sanding afterward, though. Cleanup is also much easier; you get a pile of dry paint chips instead of a pile of toxic goo.

Tuesday, 3 February 2004

# 2:10 PM

Got up this morning to see that the neighbor has decided to cut down the entire eucalyptus tree, and the old potato vine that was growing over it. The back yard looks very different now.

Monday, 2 February 2004

# 4:30 PM

unexpected gardening interlude

Rainstorm last night, not unexpected for San Francisco in February; today my housemate looks out the back window and says "hey, there's a huge tree branch in our back yard." We go out there and discover that the eucalyptus tree in the corner of the neighboring back yard has lost a good ten feet of its top, trunk included, all come crashing down and fortunately didn't hit the vegetable garden.

So we chop it up into smaller bits with big saws, and throw it all over the fence into the neighbors' woodpile. (Hey, it's their tree. Besides, they have a woodpile and we don't.)

Makes a nice change from the endless rounds of compiler bugs.