Tussock Moth Caterpillar vs. Jumping Spider

Actually the spider was a wimp.

What is this insect? UPDATE - ANSWERED Ladybug Larva

 I just saw this little guy (about 8 mm long) on the front porch railing. What is it?

I didn't move while I was looking at it (other than to kind of hump up and down).

UPDATE 7/13/2019: The Tweeters have answered!

It‘s the larva of a ladybug. 😀

— An Oak Tree (@oak_writer) July 13, 2019

So there you have it. It's a ladybug larva.

"Measure twice, cut once..."

I can't make this shit up.

A couple of weeks ago we had a termite inspection, but this has nothing to do with termites.

It seems the inspector was a refugee from a Three Stooges sketch.

Somehow he managed to jam his ladder into the attic scuttle hatch and door. He had to cut the hatch door to retrieve his ladder. There was no way I was going to help him fix it ("you break it, you bought it..."). So he came the next day to replace it. As any good Stooge would.

When he arrived the next day with a "standard" scuttle hatch door purchased from Lowe's, I could tell from looking that it wasn't even close to the right size. So now he measures the hatch door (and I saw him write it down) and back to Lowe's he goes.

I guess he returned the hatch, bought some drywall, and had it cut to his measurements.

Before I realized he was back, he had a plastic drop cloth on the driveway and was spray painting the new hatch. I went out and commented that it might've been a good idea to test fit the new cover before painting it. His response:

"Measure twice, cut once."

Uh huh.

While he was spray painting I noticed he was holding the can about four inches from the board, so the result was pretty streaky. I told him if he held the can more than twelve inches away it would cover more evenly. When he did that he marvelled at how much better it worked that way.

Uh huh.

Brick, meet dumb as a.

Since he couldn't wait for the paint to dry he stored the hatch door in our garage and left.

And now we get to the third day when he returned to put the hatch door in place.

It didn't fit. Again.

Another trip to Lowe's (I guess) and finally the hatch door fits.

Can Kids These Days Do Arithmetic?

Calculator clipart via Magical Educator

Can kids these days do basic math? Granted the anecdote I'm about to tell happened about 25 years ago but have things gotten any better?

Sometime in the early 1990s I went to a local drug store (Eckerd, RIP) to purchase stuff. One item I picked up was marked "3 for $2". Once I had finished I shopping I went to check out.

This store didn't have bar code scanners (it was a long time ago) so the cashier, early 20s or late teens, had to ring up each item by hand. When he got to the item in question he looked at the price tag and mumbled, "Three for $2? Hmm."

He looked around to see if he'd missed the other two. He hadn't. Then he looked at me and asked, "You getting just one of these?"

"Yes," I said. He looked confused. "That's about 66 cents," I offered, helpfully (Hey, I truncated. Sue me).

He picked up a calculator and punched buttons. The he looked up at me and said with a smirk, "67 cents."

Here was a presumably high school educated (maybe a senior in high school) person who could divide 2 by 3 in his head. And apparently decimals, rounding down, and rounding up were alien concepts also.

So what about today? Are kids these days any better at arithmetic?

RIP, My Jeep Travel Bug

The last pic of My Jeep Travel Bug

After nearly nine years of faithful service, I am going to retire My Jeep Travel Bug. If you want to virtually "discover" it the travel bug info is in in the second picture here.

All you need to know to "discover" My Jeep Tavel Bug.

But never fear! My NEW Jeep Travel Bug will be coming soon!

Link to log My Jeep Travel Bug: https://www.geocaching.com/track/details.aspx?id=3038236

My NEW Jeep Travel Bug

MediaWiki Installation on Raspberry Pi

Success!

If you ask me why I would want to install MediaWiki on a Raspberry Pi I'll give you the same answer George Mallory gave when asked why he wanted to climb Mount Everest:

Because it's there.

Which is just another way of saying because I want to.

Anyway, I installed MediaWiki on a Raspberry Pi and this is how I did it.

If you don't already know a Raspberry Pi is:

The Raspberry Pi is a series of small single-board computers developed in the United Kingdom by the Raspberry Pi Foundation to promote teaching of basic computer science in schools and in developing countries...

Raspberry Pi 3 Model B was released in February 2016 with a 1.2 GHz 64-bit quad core processor, on-board WiFi, Bluetooth and USB boot capabilities.

So what is MediaWiki? I'll let them explain it for themselves:

MediaWiki is a free and open source software wiki package written in PHP, originally for use on Wikipedia. It is now also used by several other projects of the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation and by many other wikis...

The Halloween Contest from Hell

So, this happened.

This year the organization I work in decided to have a Halloween office door decorating contest. The workers in one office quickly had their door decorated with store-bought signs ("Abandon all hope, ye who enter!" etc.), cardboard skeletons, and the like the week before Halloween. I guess they figured they had the contest nailed since no one else decorated their door. At least until yesterday, two days before Halloween.

My office mates and I had planned our decoration last week but weren't able to actually make it until yesterday (work happens). Our design was completely homemade (office-made?). The main feature was the backend of a witch flying her broomstick into the door. A brush hot-glued to a Pringles can was the broomstick. Her legs dangling down were made from fiberboard packing material from an inkjet printer cartridge. Her shoes were hand crafted from construction paper, as were other parts. A crepe paper cape finished the witch.

But the hapless witch wasn't just flying into a random door. An oversized printout of a compliance standard we have to follow covered the door, with a construction paper mouth and teeth swallowing the off-course witch. So we had originality, creativity, and workplace relevance.

Since our office is at the end of a corridor and we don't get as much foot traffic as the other office, one of my office mates sent an email to the organization reminding everyone to vote in the contest and pointing out that a fantastic "piece of modern art" was now available for viewing on our door.

Well this apparently did not go over well with at least one of the other office's occupants.

Within an hour this person was going around the organization personally reminding everyone to GO VOTE NOW! and to vote for their door decoration. When we learned of this vile naked electioneering of course a couple of my office mates took to the corridors to counter the threat.

From there factions began forming. One person accosted us and told us she was offended by our use of a witch on the door (we had no idea she was Wiccan). Another told us our use of the a facsimile of the standard was insubordinate. Several times we had to fix the witch's cape because someone had lifted it (perverts!).

Others supported our decoration. Sometimes we had to push our way through the crowd outside our door, chuckling at the idea of a witch being eaten by that standard.

But then we noticed people discussing the doors in the hallways. Sometimes in low tones, other times you could hear what they said.

"That witch is the best! How can you support that derivative door full of pre-printed hobgoblins over the craftsmanship of the witch? It's three-dimensional! It' obvious which one to vote for!"

"That witch is so hokey! It doesn't look real at all! And using the standard like that? It's insulting! They should be fired! It's obvious which one to vote for!"

Informal polls showed the election was neck and neck. No one could know which door would win until the final tally was taken on Halloween day.

No one expected the third, late entry would upend the entire election.

Late on the day before Halloween our supervisor decorated his door.

All votes prior to the morning of Halloween were declared void and voting restarted.

By mid afternoon Halloween day the results were in.

Our supervisor had won the door decorating contest--

--with a single pre-printed cardboard Jack O'Lantern taped to his door.