Darkoshi

It is our night of snow, snow on the ground and air temps below freezing. Tomorrow is today, will be sun and probably melt. Some might survive in the shadows for a bit longer.

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On Wednesday I ordered some things on Amazon. I chose an Amazon Day Delivery of Jan 27 for the ones that had the choice, as I'm in no hurry. An email I got today for one item "Sold by Amazon.com Services LLC" says, "New estimated delivery date: Monday, January 24, 2022 - Friday, March 25, 2022".

So either they'll have it shipped right out to me in a couple of days, or maybe it will take 2 months. Weird.

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Last year, in a store I came across some hologram artworks, 2-d paintings made into 3-d with holograms. 11 by 16 inches in size. They were neat, and I bought 2 that looked like paintings of southeast Asian goddesses.

Later after doing some searching, I discovered that the artist is Zeng Hao, and the paintings are of Kuan Yin, aka Guan Yin. I wonder if whoever made and sold these posters had permission from the actual artists; I tend to suspect not.

But I wanted to ask if any of you know... is there a special name for 3-d hologram artworks of this kind? The store had others with different kinds of artwork on them. But when I searched online, I didn't find anything like it, possibly due to not using the right search terms.

It also is a problem that photos of holograms don't look like holograms, so when looking at images in search results, I can't tell if the items shown are holographic like the ones I have or not.

Driving into the parking lot at work on Monday, I noticed the low tire pressure warning light on. There was a nail in my tire. I got the hole plugged at the service station nearby, but they recommended getting the tire replaced as the hole was close to the edge. So I the next day, I got the tire replaced at the Toyota dealership. The price seemed reasonable; I was surprised by that. The "advisor" who handled my case was cool... very gender variant looking. At first she struck me as a butch lesbian. Then I wondered, why did I assume that? Maybe he was FTM. Or maybe they were non-binary like me. His/her/their business card was stapled to my receipt. They have a gender neutral name! Later I wondered if they staple their card to everyone's receipt, and if they were as tickled by my gender variance as I was by theirs. And I wondered if something they had jokingly said early on could be considered flirting.

The waiting room at the dealership had many noises. Two TV's on, tuned to different channels. Kids shrieking and crying. Music playing. Vending machines humming. I had brought my work laptop to do some work while waiting, which I did, but the noise was distracting and stressful. Next time, it would be good to bring my noise-cancelling headphones.

The little fig tree didn't react well to the snow we got a couple weeks ago. The leaves withered and dried up. The pink magnolia reacted similarly. I hope they recover.

On the way to work, another company has a row of trees by the street. I saw them pruning some of the larger trees one day. It was after the trees had already sprouted leaves. (They surely didn't expect to trees to sprout so early this year.) Now when I drive by, the ones that were pruned are all bare, while the other ones still have their pretty green leaves. I hope the pruned ones recover too.

Yesterday I washed the dogs.
While I had the hose unfurled, I also washed the green algae and dirt off of one side of the garage.

I went to Best Buy to see if they have any quiet/silent wired mice, as the scrollwheel on my mouse at work is messing up, even after me taking it apart and cleaning out the dust. I didn't see any particularly good ones at Best Buy, so I ordered 2 from Amazon that were specifically advertised as being quiet. Two, because the one looks good and practical, but the other one looks awesome and lights up. And maybe the way the scrollwheel is on the latter, I can turn it further in a single swipe. I'm sure I'll need another mouse anyway, sooner or later.

I replaced the clear glass lampshades on the ceiling fan light fixture in Qiao's den with some translucent/milky alabaster glass ones, to reduce the glare. I also bought 2 colored LED light-bulbs (green and pink - Qiao chose the colors) to put in the 2 sockets which face us when watching TV, to further reduce the glare, as even 40W bulb equivalents up there seem pretty bright. The colored bulbs, even though they are only 3W each!, are still brighter than I expected them to be.

I raked some of the yard. I washed clothes. I vacuumed, and washed dishes and dog collars. I cleaned the tub using 4 different cleaners, and it's still not as clean as I'd like (I wish I had written down how I got it so clean last time). The "tub grip" (gah, they've increased the price by 50%!) that I applied to the floor of the tub to keep it from being slippery is very good in that regards, but it traps more dirt than a smooth surface would. Ecover used to make a tub/tile cleaner that worked very good, but it's not sold here any more. I'm not sure if a similar one I found on Amazon has the same ingredients or not, but I may get it anyway to try. Because I want my darn tub to be spotless! Then again, I read something about using dish washing liquid mixed with vinegar, which I may try first.

Here! In March!!!! And I was just taking more photos of the pretty blossoms outside! We're not likely to get much of it here, if any, but still.




According to Columbia, SC snowfall records, the latest in the Spring it ever snowed here was April 3, in 1915.

According to Florence, SC snowfall records (Florence is fairly close to Columbia), 14% of their measurable snowfall events have been during the month of March. (I didn't find a similar page for Columbia.)

Here is a page that lists the historic dates with the heaviest snowfall in Columbia.

Saw some people sledding down the road this afternoon. They had 2 real sleds; the old wood & curved metal variety.

I actually shoveled snow today! I shoveled the steps to the garage this morning, and again this evening to get off the additional layer of compacted snow/ice that had accumulated since then. I also cleared off part of the front steps hoping that it would make Serena more inclined to go out to "potty". I'm still not sure if she's done her business at all today.

Took the dogs for a short walk. I thought that Serena wouldn't even be willing to go as far as the gate, but she was a trooper and walked the whole way with Zorro and me. Zorro was in a playful mood after seeing the people on the sleds. She would have been running and jumping if she hadn't been on the leash.

A few hours later and the snowy stuff has started to ice over.

I'm been watching out my window as a big ole pickup truck keeps going forwards and back, trying to make it up the hill after turning the corner. It's not succeeding. I wonder why the person in the truck wants to drive that way so badly.

Now I've finished writing this whole post, and that pickup truck is still at it. It's not stuck in place; it just keeps reversing backwards around the corner, and then trying to turn and drive up that hill again (instead of turning left).

Boy. It's gone now. Maybe it finally made it.

It's snowing again!!!

But my dogs can't be persuaded to go out and play in it. Sigh.

Ooh. Maybe for a pizza treat, they'd be willing to endure some snow flakes falling on their heads.

Just yesterday, an Indian colleague here on a work visa asked about the best place to go, in order to see snow. An American coworker said that we don't usually get snow here, and suggested Asheville, NC.

I sure hope Manish looked out his window tonight.

Water on a glass coaster. The symbol on the coaster means "ocean".


( More Pretty Photos.... )

We're having our 2nd snowfall of the season. We don't usually get that. It's several inches deep, still falling, and not predicted to get over 33 degrees today. Tomorrow it will be slightly warmer and might melt.

The snow was forecast to start around 4am. I got woken up by a thunderclap at 5:30am, looked outside, and everything was already covered in a dusting of white. There were a few more loud echoing thunder strikes. That was eerie, the combination of snow and thunder.. not sure if I ever experienced that in Massachusetts or Germany.

A flock of birds having a grand time, the morning after the big snowstorm we had here last month.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bIASbuel6I

Ah, isn't this just wonderful.

I'm working from home due to my cold.

Big snowflakes are falling outside. I see them through the window. They're not sticking to the roads, so work wasn't cancelled. Even if it had been, I'd feel I'd need to keep working anyway, since we have a tight deadline. Plus, I'm enjoying the thing I'm working on right now - finally getting to do some nitty-gritty real coding again, after the last month of determining the approach and writing the specs.

I'm partially listening to the inauguration on TV, while working. I had totally forgotten about the inauguration, due to the **SNOW!!!**, until Q mentioned it a while ago.

There's even occasional sunshine coming through the snow.