Computers generate so much heat, don't they?
You really think, in these melting times, that I'd be a sensible Duckie and hang out in my cool concrete studio as much as possible, wouldn't you? But no. Stoopid Duckie decides to completely rejig her website. Totally.
There is a good reason for this. I offered to revamp Sarsaparilla, the group blog I belong to. (I won't make a link, because at the moment it won't get you anywhere.) This involves specialist Wordpress knowledge, which I don't have a hell of a lot of, or didn't up to a few weeks ago. But the Sars server melted down, not from heat (although that could be a contributing factor) but because Sars was built a few years ago by Laura from sticks and bits of sealing wax (most cleverly integrating features that weren't standard at the time), and it all fell apart in the face of looming software upgrades.
So while L and I were sorting out what was wrong and what we could do to fix it, I thought I'd practice on my own site, as I realised that I don't like building a website from scratch and Wordpress can do it so much better, and it gives me a chance to blather on like I do here.
Of course, as YOU all know, tweaking a website sucks up time like nobody's business. I've been glued to my computer after dark all week, and also whenever I can manage it during the day. HOT! Anyway, I'm happy with the result. Now I just have to fill the site up a bit more.
Other Chez Duck news: Bumblebee started school this week, and two days in stepped on a tack. Not at school, at home, and it wasn't just a thumbtack, it was a long-pinned upholstery tack, the kind we've used to attach shadecloth to the front of our house to keep us cool (I'm can't tell you how posh we look now, with chicken-wire fences and hastily-tacked shadecloth). We thought we'd cleaned up the dropped pins, but obviously we missed one. Poor boy, it went right into his heel, and it REALLY hurt. Lots of ice, lots of love, notes to get out of sport, and the ability to wear soft spongy crocs helped a lot. His foot's pretty good now.
And now our plums are perfect, so poor old BB is attempting to make plum sauce today. I've told him he is mad, but he thinks he'll make a batch and then go to a movie while the house cools down. He'll be a puddle of sweat. I plan to fill our fridge with plums. How e.e. cummings...
I'm orf to the cool concrete: it will be too hot to use glue (dry before it hits the surface), so I think I'll do some folding. The hardest part about working with paper in weather like this is keeping your hands clean and dry. Sweat stains aren't very attractive on pages.
I hope you're all staying cool somehow, or at least moving very slowly. Think tortoise. I certainly intend to.
7 comments:
I made a dozen pots of plum jam - don't know what sort of plums - we just call it Shed Plum (different from, of course, the Garage Plum and Woodheap Plum trees. And the freezer is full of stewed plums -for all those winter desserts we can only dream about at the moment.....
So that's the Sars story - thanks for the update. I think you're both awful clever.
Good luck with the coolness.
omfg - JAM? TODAY?? I kept thinking today of what would be the worst household task you could do in 46 degree heat. Bake Bread? Ironing? Didn't think of make jam, but that about does it.
I KNOW! But he's always doing things like that. Not a terribly practical person, my love, but he does come up with the goods.
Anyway, we now have a batch of spicy plum sauce, a bowl of cool plums, and two empty pizza containers. Yum.
Have you told him that you can pit the plums, do a minor house-hottening cook up and then freeze them for the serious jam making IN AUTUMN!!!
Every year at this time I think of our country foremothers, who spend sweltering Januaries in kitchens with wood stoves burning all day, putting up food for winter, baking bread and giving the menfolk three hot meals a day.
Thank the goddess for feminism and freezers.
Heat output from computers:
Find as low a dish as you can, fill with one tray of ice cubes. Place on top of the box sitting on a teatowel to collect condensation.
The computer's cooling fan will draw the ice-cooled air down, reducing heat output AND help to prevent your hard drive seizing due to heat stress.
But don't forget the teatowel - an electrical fire will just make things hotter.
Weirdly, by Sunday, I think I'd got used to the heat...Nice that it's cool now though
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